Hi I have the same dilemma as what to do with my lawn, its a rectangle with a straight flower border either side, all the comments have been extremely helpful and I love the ideas of curves. LeadFarmer your garden is just wow what a difference.
Thanks pavery026. Whilst it might look completely different this is only because I removed all the plants I didnt want, and then reshaped the lawn edges to create deeper borders to plant into.
Large lawn areas with thin borders around the edge dont really work in my opinion. At the very least I would make your borders as deep as possible, or how about having a circular shaped lawn in the middle, surrounded completely with planting? Or perhaps a figure of 8 shaped lawn? Could you post a photo of your garden so we can see what might work?
Here's a before and after photo of the garden of my previous house. Again it had straight thin borders and looked bland...
I created a figure of 8 shaped lawn that created deeper borders for planting...
here is my garden would be very grateful for any ideas on what to do with the lawn. As you can see I keep widening the border out for more plants, but wonder if there could be something more interesting. Right hand side of the path is the veg patch, and at the bottom I will be removing the bushes but leaving the conifers up with tops chopped off, putting a new fence up and replanting. Excuse the weeds in the gravel waiting for it to stop raining when im not at work to remove them. Hope the picture looks ok had a bit of difficulty adding it, till I realised I had to make it smaller.
Go with the flow, work with nature, look at other gardens in your area to see what you like and what grows well (you could also use this as an 'excuse' to talk to neighbours and swap cuttings and seeds,) don't be in too much of a hurry, remember why you wanted a garden in the first place and enjoy the journey.
I got rid of my lawns completely about 5 years ago, and have never regretted it. Looking at your garden pic, Pavery, I wondered how it could look if you perhaps did the same, and had a gravel path threading through the lawn area, matching the gravel on the patio, with curving borders along similar lines to LeadFarmer's suggestion, but deeper.
I really love the look you have created but my garden is only fenced by chain fencing. Id love to create what you have done
Why don't you grow some climbers (cheap clematis from Lidl or poundland, or Morning Glory) on some of the chainlink to soften it up a bit and give you a quick background?
All great ideas the gravel will probably go as we are looking into getting a conservatory so will need a sitting area, but can put plenty of pots on it. I think it's definitely wise to take time to make the decision but the curves are a must. Think I might spend the weekend marking out with an old hose pipe the shape and live with it for a few days, see how it works. Excitable boy you could also use the bamboo or willow screening and just tie onto the fence with wire. It's exciting thinking about what could be done. Thanks everyone.
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Thanks pavery026. Whilst it might look completely different this is only because I removed all the plants I didnt want, and then reshaped the lawn edges to create deeper borders to plant into.
Large lawn areas with thin borders around the edge dont really work in my opinion. At the very least I would make your borders as deep as possible, or how about having a circular shaped lawn in the middle, surrounded completely with planting? Or perhaps a figure of 8 shaped lawn? Could you post a photo of your garden so we can see what might work?
Here's a before and after photo of the garden of my previous house. Again it had straight thin borders and looked bland...
I created a figure of 8 shaped lawn that created deeper borders for planting...
here is my garden would be very grateful for any ideas on what to do with the lawn. As you can see I keep widening the border out for more plants, but wonder if there could be something more interesting. Right hand side of the path is the veg patch, and at the bottom I will be removing the bushes but leaving the conifers up with tops chopped off, putting a new fence up and replanting. Excuse the weeds in the gravel waiting for it to stop raining when im not at work to remove them. Hope the picture looks ok had a bit of difficulty adding it, till I realised I had to make it smaller.
Thanks
Heres a simple way of creating borders for planting. Excuse my poor artistic skills, I dont really have any editing software! ..
Is the gravel area a patio? Could some of this area be turned over to planting by extending the garden into this area?
Go with the flow, work with nature, look at other gardens in your area to see what you like and what grows well (you could also use this as an 'excuse' to talk to neighbours and swap cuttings and seeds,) don't be in too much of a hurry, remember why you wanted a garden in the first place and enjoy the journey.
Why don't you grow some climbers (cheap clematis from Lidl or poundland, or Morning Glory) on some of the chainlink to soften it up a bit and give you a quick background?
Warm the hose pipe up in warm water first, to make it plyable. Or use a line of sand instead. Thats what I did.